Which Chinese transformed the San Gabriel Valley

The San Gabriel Valley has more mainland Chiense than Chiense from Hong Kong and Taiwan. Some residents even suggest that Monterey Park's unofficial title of "Little Taipei" be changed to
"Little Shanghai."

David Lau, Mayor of Monterey Park said that mainland Chinese came to the United States last
year in numbers ten times than those from Hong Kong and six times those from Taiwan. Reports
David Pierson, "The mixing of these three groups has touched off its share of conflicts, but it is
also shattering regional stereotypes within the Chinese community and creating a new identity --
with American culture as the unifying thread."

The last census counted 407,003 Asians among the 1.8 million residents of the San Gabriel
Valley. The 30,651 people of Taiwanese descent were vastly outnumbered by 212,861 non-Taiwanese Chinese. Federal statistics show 61,282 mainland Chinese legally immigrated to the
U.S. last year, the largest number since 1993. In most cases, China does not hinder those seeking
to emigrate, and over the last decade 30,000 to 40,000 have made new lives in the U.S. each year. By comparison, 6,090 people emigrated from Hong Kong to America last year and 9,836 from
Taiwan. Those figures have remained fairly steady since some highs in the early 1990s, when there
were more than 10,000 immigrants from each region. (Source: The New York Times, August 13, 2003)